eland, Miss Fairfax prefers devoting the time to you and Mrs. Bates?"

"Yes--entirely her own doing, entirely her own choice; and Colonel
and Mrs. Campbell think she does quite right, just what they should
recommend; and indeed they particularly _wish_ her to try her native
air, as she has not been quite so well as usual lately."

"I am concerned to hear of it. I think they judge wisely. But Mrs.
Dixon must be very much disappointed. Mrs. Dixon, I understand, has
no remarkable degree of personal beauty; is not, by any means, to be
compared with Miss Fairfax."

"Oh! no. You are very obliging to say such things--but certainly not.
There is no comparison between them. Miss Campbell always was absolutely
plain--but extremely elegant and amiable."

"Yes, that of course."

"Jane caught a bad cold, poor thing! so long ago as the 7th of November,
(as I am going to read to you,) and has never been well since. A long
time, is not it, for a cold to hang upon her? She never mentioned
it before, because she would not alarm us. Just like her! so
considerate!--But however, she is so far from well, that her kind
friends the Campbells think she had better come home, and try an air
that always agrees with her; and they have no doubt that three or four
months at Highbury will entirely cure her--and it is certainly a great
deal better that she should come here, than go to Ireland, if she is
unwell. Nobody could nurse her, as we should do."

"It appears to me the most desirable arrangement in the world."

"And so she is to come to us next Friday or Saturday, and the Campbells
leave town in their way to Holyhead the Monday following--as you will
find from Jane's letter. So sudden!--You may guess, dear Miss Woodhouse,
what a flurry it has thrown me in! If it was not for the drawback of
her illness--but I am afraid we must expect to see her grown thin, and
looking very poorly. I must tell you what an unlucky thing happened to
me, as to that. I always make a point of reading Jane's letters through
to myself first, before I read them aloud to my mother, you know, for
fear of there being any thing in them to distress her. Jane desired me
to do it, so I always do: and so I began to-day with my usual caution;
but no sooner did I come to the mention of her being unwell, than I
burst out, quite frightened, with 'Bless me! poor Jane is ill!'--which
my mother, being on the watch, heard distinctly, and was sadly alarmed
at. However, when I read o